In the Round
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In the Round
Pre-order Now for €12.99
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Rebecca Handler
Have you ever been dead certain that you’re being observed, that maybe your very existence is predicated on how others see you? A few minutes after she’s become convinced she’s the victim of a home invasion, In the Round’s brilliant and intimate narrator plunges us into a feminist Kafkaesque literary mystery that unfolds over the course of one weird—and dare we say, dramatic—night in San Francisco. Nothing is missing from her family’s home, but everything feels wrong. So begins a sleepless night of questioning, and a novel packed with the kind of astonishing twists that leave listeners wondering: Is all the world a stage, after all? Over the course of the evening, theatrical elements creep in: a cast list, a prop list, an intermission.
At once an avant-garde thriller, a meditation on motherhood and mortality, a full-throated endorsement of gut-level intuition, and a tribute to the rapture of live theater in a post-pandemic world, In the Round is a lively, inventive, and completely singular story.
©2026 by Rebecca Handler (P)2026 Blackstone PublishingReviews
“I read the opening pages of this remarkable book with a thrill of finding myself in the hands of a gifted conjuror, and finished in a state of total enchantment, profoundly moved.”
(Michael Chabon)“In this delicately immersive novel, quiet shifts of scale, reminiscent of the great Paula Fox, evoke a whole sense of our time. Here, the dynamics of witnessing and surveillance are the constant texture of consciousness. Mapping the movements of the mind of an ordinary woman at home in the night, Rebecca Handler shows us what makes a life worth watching: access to the everyday endurance of suffering and the reality of joy.”
(Lucy Corin)“What a beguiling storyteller Rebecca Handler is! In the Round gives the readers an enthralling pleasure of being inside a character and watching the character from outside, which is perhaps akin to the most important experience of living with attention and reflection.”
(Yiyun Li)“I wandered into this literary labyrinth late at night, thinking I’ll just take a quick peek at what’s inside. Instead, I found myself forgoing sleep to follow its twists and turns, surprised and delighted, reluctant to return to the real world.”
(Soma Mei-Sheng Frazier)“Only Rebecca Handler can write a play within a novel within an identity crisis that comes with cat jokes, an extraordinary act of kindness, betrayal, and disdain for musical theater. In The Round is profound and pithy and not like any other book you will ever read in just one sitting. Wow.”
(Marcy Dermansky)“In the Round is the most exciting, original novel I’ve read in years. I couldn’t put it down and couldn’t stop thinking about it long after I’d read the breathtaking final words. Fans of Katie Kitamura, Jenny Offill, and Rachel Cusk: Here is your new favorite writer.”
(Joanna Rakoff)“I read the spectacular IN THE ROUND in a single delighted sitting, entranced by the possibilities opened up, the life made urgent and real. Bravissima!”
(R. O. Kwon)